When it comes to eating and working out to lose fat and gain lean muscle, 80% of it is your diet and 20% is your workout!

Let’s keep it simple and go back to the basics of CICO “Calories In Calories Out.”

This is an eating plan that requires you to first determine how many calories a day you need to maintain your weight and then subtract 500 calories per day for every pound of weight you would like to lose in a week. Example: 3500 calories = one pound of fat. So to lose a pound a week, you would eat 500 less calories a day.

There are free online tools such as Body Weight Planner that will calculate this formula for you.

Now let’s add some exercise to this formula. Let’s say you do a spinning class 3 days a week and a Boot Camp class 2 days a week. You calculated from your fit bit or other tracking devices that you burn 500 calories in these classes. Great! You now have a deficit of 3500 calories for the entire week!

Is this healthy? It is if your calories are clean! Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean proteins, and low-fat dairy. Remember to be mindful of not eating whatever you want; it is essential you get the right nutrients.

What is so hard about this? Tracking the calories is very important as well as the quality of food.

Once you achieved your ideal weight and % of body fat you can Maintain!

If Calories in = Calories out then….= Maintenance!